The article was written in July. So was my initial comment. I’ve gone back through what I wrote in light of the recent Newtown massacre, and see no reason to change any of the substance of what I wrote previously. The 2nd Amendment says what it says, and comes from a background of a society where only the military had firearms of any kind. I understand why it’s part of the Bill of Rights. This has never – ever – been a society where only the military has access to firearms, nor have I ever suggested that it be so. While I don’t expect to see it in my lifetime, at some point, I can only hope that the general public, tired of public bloodbaths, will finally insist that assault weapons and high-capacity magazines be banned – not just from possession, but also from manufacture.
I also continue to believe that “Avatar” doesn’t have a moral or intellectual leg to stand on. As is common with gun-worshippers, he falls back on a technical argument that the AR-15 is somehow not an assault weapon because it’s not fully automatic. In polite circles, we would call that argument “intellectually dishonest,” or perhaps more accurately, “sophistry.” In less polite circles, there are various other names…
Had the Aurora shooter, or the Newtown shooter, been limited to a hunting rifle with 3-round clips, brave Mr. Avatar would have had longer and more frequent opportunities to demonstrate his fantasy-based heroism, since the shooters would have had to stop and reload multiple times in order to inflict the same amount of carnage. Lacking that sort of limitation, and given the perversion of the NRA and the willful blindness of Mr. Avatar, we can expect to witness – hopefully at a safe distance – more of the same kinds of mass killings until some sad day when multiple legislators have family members killed or wounded by yet another deranged and heavily-armed shooter. At that point, perhaps politics and campaign dollars will cede ground to humanity and common sense.
